Saturday, January 29, 2011

These are the times that try men's souls

2010 was a rough year.  As Nathan and I stood arm in arm watching the ball drop as the final few seconds of 2010 ticked away, I couldn't help but bid good riddance to a year that had caused us so much heartache.  We toasted to a better, awesome, fantastic 2011.  We went to bed and woke to a wonderful surprise...one we kept private (except from our friends Joseph and Alison who happened to be at our place that morning...from whom we could not hide our excitement).  2011 was already off to a good start.  We had {finally} received our first contact through the itsaboutlove.org website.  It was from a young woman and her boyfriend, who found our profile, loved us and wondered if we were still interested in adopting.   (Um, of course we are!!)   We wrote up a response and had it sent off by lunch that day.  Later that evening we got a copy of the response...or at least that's what we thought.  I should explain something quick...when someone contacts us through the itsaboutlove.org website it goes through a screener in Salt Lake before we see it...and our responses are sent though the same screener before they are sent on to the recipient.  It's kind of a pain, but it protects the privacy of both parties...until you both decide you want to move to the next step in your relationship.

After a couple days I started questioning if our response had been sent to back to that couple...or just to us.  So I inquired with the screener in Salt Lake.  A couple days later she tells me that she made a mistake and accidentally sent it to us instead of to them.  Seriously.  So she forwarded it on...four days after the initial contact.  We wait and wait and never get a response.

Fast forward to last week.  I couldn't get them out of my mind.  I felt like we needed to respond again...so on Tuesday we sent off an email.  The screener in Salt Lake forwarded it on...only to have it returned as undeliverable.  She forwarded me the copy of the undeliverable message.  At first I was bummed...but as I scrolled down through the message my mood lifted when I noticed the young woman's email address.  Now I'll admit I struggled with knowing what to do...but I consulted with a couple trusted friends and came to the decision to send an email directly to her from our adoption account.  I fired it off and within an hour I got the same undeliverable message.  So I did the next logical thing.  I googled the email address....nothing.  So I searched Facebook...and got a hit.  It matched to a profile of a girl who had the same first name as the young woman who had sent the initial contact message.  I wrote a long message, explaining the situation and trying my best to make me seem as little like a stalker as I possibly could...and clicked send.

Yesterday we got her response.  Turns out that she never got our initial response.  Only a couple days after she sent her message to us, her email got hacked and she had to shut it down.  Then she told me that they hadn't heard from us and since "time was ticking, we decided on another family". 

Now I know that everything happens for a reason, and obviously that child wasn't meant to be in our family...but it doesn't take away the hurt...or the frustration.  My confidence in our agency has been shattered...our hopes once again dashed.  Needless to say, we haven't stuck to our new diet this week...chocolate and gummy bears soothe the soul.

8 comments:

Salmon Tolman Family said...

My heart just dropped. What a horrible letdown. Dearest Holly, it doesn't seem fair at all. How much more of this do you have to take?! Ugh. I'm SOOO sorry.

V said...

I'm so sorry!
That would be so painful. Hurtful. Frustrating.

Que and Brittany's Adoption Journey said...

What a way to start 2011! I'm so sorry, that sounds awfully frustrating! :(

Kathy said...

UGH!! And ARGHHH!!!! I can't _believe_ that happened! YOu are a stronger woman than I am, seriously. There is no way I'd have survived being jerked around with this process as much as you have been.

I'm soooo sorry. Your experience with the agency has been so different from our first experience, but our current experience is more on par with your current experience. (We haven't had any contact from anyone at all, though, which I imagine is better than having contact and being jerked around.)

Have you had any satisfaction in trying to deal with the agency? The fact that you lost a contact because they dropped the ball seems like something that should be complained about.

Send me an email of FB message and we'll talk.

Me, Myself and I said...

I feel so sad. This is just awful! Stupid agency! I want to go down there and give them a piece of my mind!

Happy Herrons said...

AAHHAHAHAH!!!

Happy Herrons said...

You ARE getting tons of contacts!?!! We had 1.5 CONTACTS in almost three years of waiting before Ellie. I know it doesn't make any difference now, but you WILL be glad you held out for YOUR perfect baby.

Holly said...

Ann - not tons of contacts. This was our first one through LDSFS and we've been approved for almost a year. :(